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DATE: June 15, 2002 High Temperature: 100 Low Temperature: 75 Meat intake: Pork, Chicken Source material: Eat Your Way Across America, emails from Tom Welsh & Ed Ward, Lonely Planet: USA. Miles covered: 550
So John got up early and played golf. Why? 'Cause that's what golfers do. If it had been disc golf, I would've gotten up. But not for plain, old golf. I just can't do it. While John was hitting balls, I was uploading the previous
day's site. We then had to get on the road because we had yet another
long drive ahead of us. On top of that, we had to get to Washington,
DC at a reasonable time because, Aldo, a friend of John's from his Colgate
days had gotten us tickets to join him and some friends to see Beth
Orton in concert. Good show. I had never heard of her. If you'd like
to hear a song, let me know and I'll post an MP3 for you.
So back to the road. We just hauled ass. John had a name of a BBQ place in Holy Mount, NC. He had a list of a few places along the way, but we settled on Bob Melton's BBQ. The "Eat" book said it was mouthwatering. North Carolina BBQ is different from Texas BBQ. Well I guess it's also different from Tennessee BBQ. Which is also different from Texas BBQ. Okay, I guess they're all different. Anyway, North Carolina BBQ sauce doesn't have any tomatoes in it. It's not sweet. It's very spicy. Vinegar and peppers. It works its way through you a little faster, too. The occasional restroom stop was made along the way. The pork was pretty good. Shredded to bits. But it had nothing on Cooper's. The ambiance of Bob Shelton's left a little to be desired, too. It was more boring than a boring Sizzler. And I like Sizzler.
While driving along, my mom called to tell me that she was able to go to Lewistown, PA, a day earlier than planned if I wanted to. Did I mention that the reason for me joining John on this trip was not only about meat? My mom was gonna be back east visiting my great aunt, Peg. I hadn't been to Lewistown in awhile, so I decided it was time for a visit. Lewistown is where my mom grew up. If I was able to visit Lewistown on Sunday night and Monday morning instead of Monday night and Tuesday morning, I'd be able to go to the premiere of Minority Report on Monday in NYC. It took a lot of juggling. I had to change my rental car plans which wasn't too easy. I also had to change the hotel reservation my mom had made. But I managed to do it all. It's gonna take some serious driving, too. Gotta leave Lewistown by noon to make it to NYC by 5:00 in order to be at the screening by 6:00. You can watch the festivities here. Who knows... Maybe you'll even see me.
Back to the drive. We drove past "Pedro's South of the Border" again. If you read the cross country trip from a few years back, you'll remember that I stayed there once. No need to stay again. Once is enough.
Other than that and the less-than-exciting BBQ stop, the drive was uneventful. Just some serious driving. Of course, I was a little nervous about speeding, so it took a little longer than it might've had I not been pulled over 2 days earlier. Also, John and I both noticed that drivers on the East coast are not the best drivers. They don't seem to understand the left lane is the passing lane and is meant for people who are going fast. As a result a lot of time was spent in the right lane passing people. This made me nervous, but had to be done. Upon arriving in D.C., John drove my by Yum's. It is where he and Paul Kibel would go for late night yummies.
The short stop in D.C. made for a long night. Dinner, drinks, concert, drinks (Aldo got me into some club that didn't want to let me in because I was wearing cargo pants.), Then back to Aldo's for some World Cup action. We ended up being up really late. I fell asleep in a chair.
Five hours later, I woke up and had to rush to the Ronald Reagan Airport to pick up my rental car. I'm not sure that an Airport should be named after Ronald Reagan. First of all, he's not dead, so that's a little weird. But wasn't he president when all the Air Traffic Controllers went on strike? And didn't he force them back to work or they'd be fired? And didn't he actually fire a lot of them? And now isn't there a glut of air traffic controllers retiring at the same time because they all started at the same time? I imagine he's not the most popular president when it comes to airport employees. Just my two cents. We drove by the Pentagon on the way to the airport. You can't even see where the damage is anymore. They fixed that thing quick. There were also a bunch of heavily armed Army guys all around it. After DC, I'm going to be taking a break from the dispatches. I might report one last time from Little Compton, RI, so everyone can see where John lives. I will, however, put some cool pictures from Pennsylvania under this 'cause they're pretty cool.Shartlesville, PA is in the middle of Amish Country. PA is about 15 degrees cooler than anywhere else I've been in the past week. Very refreshing.
Until we meat again... |
